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Hey you, New Hampshire landowner. Do you know what’s lurking in your woods and fields?
No, I’m not talking about Bigfoot or that time you saw what you’re sure was a mountain lion (it was a bobcat). I’m talking about gnarled representatives of New England’s fruitarian history, which might prove a savior in our climate-roiled future.
“Apple trees can last up to 200 years on a traditional rootstock. So there are still older trees out there to be found, usually in the woods, old pastureland that has grown up, that we don’t even know the variety,” said Jared Kane.
Kane wants to know if you’ve got one of those long-forgotten trees – either apple or pear – so he can graft it onto rootstock as part of a Regional Heritage Orchard that’s being started on a farm in Milton. The goal is to preserve genetic diversity in the fruit, which is disappearing as consumer-driven agriculture chooses just a few winners.
“Today there are, like, seven varieties of apples on the shelf. In the 1800s there were probably between 10,000 and 16,000 varieties in the U.S. alone. Each region has its own apples – different ones for cooking, for sauce, for livestock, for cider,” he said. Many of those varieties have disappeared without ever having been documented.
The heritage orchard, which has just launched on Branch Hill Farm, is in good company. There are plenty of projects around the world trying to preserve genetic diversity of plants and animals before they’re wiped out by human activity.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture has an entire program based in New York to research and teach “plant and animal genetic resources preservation,” and you’ve probably heard of Svalbard Global Seed Vault on the Norwegian island of Spitsbergen, which collects material from seed banks around the world to preserve it in case of major calamity.
All this is being done partly for aesthetic and environmental reasons – diversity is good – but mostly for practical reasons, said Richard Smith, whose job title at UNH is awesome: associate professor of cropping systems ecology and management.
“It is quite practical from a crop-improvement perspective. The more diversity you have in terms of the genes, the more likely there are traits available that could then be utilized for future crop improvement efforts,” said Smith.
“Genes that confer natural resistance to a certain insect pest or an emerging disease, and the more diversity we have and maintain the more likely we can find those genes to be used. That is going to become more and more important as the weather changes, with (resulting) migration of new pests and disease. As much as we can preserve diversity, that’s a tool we can take advantage of,” he said.
Why do apples have such diversity? Apple trees do not self-fertilize, which means if a different type of pollen is carried to the flower it can alter the genetic mix of the resulting seeds.
Apples are not native to North America but were brought here by Europeans and mostly planted by seed – think of Johnny Appleseed – producing a mix-and-match of varieties.
“Once apples came here, the diversity went off the charts,” said Kane. “Every tree that he grew was a different variety. It’s kind of a crapshoot – don’t know what you’re going to get.”
That’s why Kane won’t be planting seeds but will be grafting ancient cultivars onto root stock of full-sized trees, to be sure of the genetic consistency.
If you think you’ve got a candidate, either apple or pear, Kane wants to hear from you, although it might take a while for him to get back to you due to the press of interest.
“We sent a press release on Thursday. By Friday I had 30-plus emails and phone calls,” he said.
Just take a picture of the tree and email it to Kane at Jared_Kane@branchhillfarm.org to start the conversation.
How do you determine if an old apple or pear tree is a good candidate?
“If the base is more than a foot in diameter, and especially if the tree is hollow – a lot of them start to hollow out,” said Kane. “Send me a picture of the tree – that’ll weed it out, right off. … A lot of people will send pictures of their apple tree that’s only 30 years old.”
If it looks promising, he said, he’ll be in touch. The goal is to quickly save the genetics and worry about deep analysis later on.
“Once we graft it and save it in the orchard, we can take our time,” he said.
Branch Hill Farm covers about 3,000 acres, much of it a tree farm. The land has been part of various farms over the centuries. Carl Siemon established it in 1962 when he bought his grandparents’ farmhouse in Milton Mills, and has expanded the property over ensuing decades. It’s now owned by the Carl Siemon Family Charitable Trust, a private foundation with educational and conservation purposes – so the heritage orchard fits in well.
As for me, I won’t be sending in a picture. My apple trees, even the gnarled ugly ones in the back yard, are too young to participate. That doesn’t mean they’re useless. For decades, my wife and I with friends have made applesauce – it doesn’t matter how ugly and wormy the never-sprayed apples are – and lately we’ve been slicing and dehydrating the less-repulsive ones for apple rings.
Not historic, but tasty!
(David Brooks can be reached at 369-3313 or dbrooks@cmonitor.com or on Twitter @GraniteGeek.)
